Last month Commentary published a piece called "Why Jews Hate Palin" that I greatly appreciated. Written by Jennifer Rubin, the piece directly addressed sociological issues that I often raise about my tribe: we're incredibly privileged, and not very humble, and our political values tend to be circumscribed geographically and class-wise. Rubin was even more unsparing than I am, for she described Jews as rich elitists, stuffy snobs: "those for whom an Ivy League education is the essential calling card for leadership," as she wrote with good acid.
Rubin's a neocon (I'm guessing; she writes for Commentariat) and so she presumably sees a political value in offering this criticism. I see one, too: Rubin's assertions help dislodge the Jewish vanity that we are outsiders. No: we're winners; and we should acknowledge our incredible luck, and show greater respect for those with different socio-cultural attributes. I will be hitting these points often in weeks to come, even though they are uncomfortable-making, because I heard so many Palestinians making these points in the Middle East, more crudely, even anti-Semitically, and I think the answer to intellectual crudeness on important questions is to try and be honest and precise.
Here are the key moments in Rubin's analysis:
As [Matthew] Continetti observes with savage irony, “The American meritocratic elite places a high priority on verbal felicity and the attitudes, practices and jargon that one picks up during graduate seminars in nonprofit management, government accounting and the semiotics of Percy Shelley’s ‘To a Skylark.’” Given that Jews are overrepresented in these sorts of professions, it is not surprising that they would be among those most put off by Palin...
Palin’s intellectual unfitness in the eyes of Jews was exaggerated during the course of the campaign...
But in affluent communities with large Jewish populations, Down-syndrome children are now largely absent due to the widespread use of diagnostic testing and “genetics counseling.” Trig was not a selling point with many Jewish women who couldn’t imagine making a similar choice—indeed, many have, in fact, made the opposite one....
Palin and her husband had labored at jobs most professional and upper-middle-class Jews would never dream of holding—waitressing, picking “strawberries in the mud and mosquitoes . . . for five cents flat,” sweeping parking lots, and many “messy, obscure seafood jobs, including long shifts on a stinky shore-based crab-processing vessel.” Her populist appeal and identification with working-class voters are rooted in a life experience that is removed by one or two generations from the lives of most American Jews....
In a real sense, by the way she lives and the style she has adopted, Sarah Palin is the precise reverse image of an American Jewish professional woman. The two are polar opposites. The repulsion is almost magnetic in nature....
Palin’s anti-elitism and her embrace of social conservatism, which are now integral to her persona, will in all likelihood continue to make her unpopular with the great majority of Jews. She is not about to change her appearance, her stance on abortion, or her disdain for media elites. And Jews are not about to cast aside their preference for those leaders whom they perceive as intellectually worthy—and socially compatible.
Watch your generalizations.
You don’t like the tone of the criticism of Palin, but like share in it? Or are you now sympathetic with her comments?
Jews are far more various than your characterizations.
So if Palestinians make those points they’re antisemitic, but Phillip can make them? That’s dangerously inconsistent, if you ask me…
gmeyers,
I think that Phil would say that the ways in which these points are articulated in the Middle East are more anti-semitic, but underneath this shabby excuse lies the truth in your analysis. Like most left-leaning Jewish critics of Israel, Phil makes points critical of American Jews that raise his hackles when they come out of the mouths of most gentiles.
PM
Watch your generalizations.
Or else, what?
Or else you will contributing to the evil in the world, rather than to the good and just.
Yeah, Witty, we see how you are contributing to the good and just. Is that what Adam Sadler is doing? Spare us your sophomoric comments.
Witty, there is a lot of ignorance and plain stupidity. evil seems to reside in action and is probably all fear based. Israelis scare themselves half to death of the “arab” boogy man. get the fear mongers out. What do you think of Avigdor Lieberman?
What was Phil’s generalization, Witty?
Huh. You’ve been so incredibly silent over the past few days — you know, the articles about the Goldstone report and yet another embarrassing reporter for the NYT — I thought maybe you’d died, or something. I forgot how incredibly mind-numbingly selective you are in what you read.
Mr. Weiss,
You don’t happen to watch Seth MacFarlane’s animated sitcom American Dad do you? In the episode Rough Trade he conflates white supremacy with anti-zionism.
“Yeah, I’m a member of the Anti-Zionist Aryan Brotherhood.”
Thought you might find it interesting. I think it was pretty disgusting of them to do myself.
The intent is to lock in the association into the mind of the couch potatoes and their children. A second taboo rises on the shoulder of the first taboo. Anti-Zionist =white racist. Anti-Zionist =Nazi. Family Guy, American Dad,
South Park, etc–all shows relentlessly PC beneath a veneer of social satire.
Which is ironic because Zionism is merely a manifestation of white supremacy.
But back to the article…
I find it interesting that if this article had been written by someone not Jewish it would have been smeared as anti-Semitic.
Also, given that virtually every Jewish person I’ve met in my life has been financially well off, I still do feel that this representation of Jews as all being upper-middle class to upper class and being repulsed by working in menial jobs is faaar to harsh a generalization even if made by a Jewish women herself.
I think the real reason Ruben has a problem with Palin is because Palin is vehemently pro-Israel and is creating a new trend in which being pro-Israel is becoming more and more synonymous with the right and with the conservative movement in general.
This is what really scares upper middle class “liberals” like Ruben, who in the near future will find it harder and harder to convince progressives and liberals that Israel is a shining beacon of Democracy surrounded by a horde of barbarion Arabs who eat babies for fun.
I think you got it. Goy Palin makes it harder to look into the mirror. Jeez, she’s on our side?
Yes, she is.
JB: I think the real reason Ruben has a problem with Palin is because Palin is vehemently pro-Israel and is creating a new trend in which being pro-Israel is becoming more and more synonymous with the right and with the conservative movement in general.
Very astute, James. It must be really scary for some of these liberals to look around and see who else is on their side. This is definitely part of the hysteria over Goldstone, JStreet, BDS, etc. – anger at being left alone with Palin, on the wrong side! I’m hoping many PEP’s will start realising that there is a very good reason why everyone they respect is on the other side and everyone they abhor is rooting for their team.
You can see this phenomenon at this website, with so many of the Zionist trolls denouncing the non/anti Zionists as “lefties”.
The core values of Zionism – racism, inequality, militarism – are anathema to anyone of liberal views.
Do Jews generally hate Palin?
If so, why?
Is it really so much a matter of socio-economic class? Is Palin even from the working class
in the sense of Joe Sixpack? Isn’t she more from the middle class? Does it all boil down to
how easily she talks of “real Americans?” Does that trigger the “she means us Jews” reflex, even though she’s on record as pro-Israel as a place where more and more Jews
may be going?
link to frumforum.com
Exactly Citizen.
Do Jews really hate Palin?
Granted many probably due for the reasons that Rubin espouses, but what about Jews like Joseph Lieberman?
Let’s be offensively blunt – the socio-economic class in question is trailer trash.
Funny you should mention it. We at least know that the white trailer trash supporting Israel uber alles is pathetic. They will be the first to die (and always taxed) for a Greater Israel. Chumps of the first order. Springer and Israel take it all to the bank. The ignorant goys get to pay the price. Could it get any better?
Does Rubin approve of the alliance between the Christian Right and the far-right (or less) Zionists?
Rubin: “Palin’s intellectual unfitness in the eyes of Jews was exaggerated during the course of the campaign…”
I don’t believe ANYONE can exaggerate Palin’s intellectual unfitness!
As a woman, though not Jewish, I find Rubin’s comments about Jews, Palin and Down-syndrome offensive and insulting! Her statement about Palin’s son Trig not “winning her votes of Jewish women”..I seriously doubt that Trigs Down Syndrome was THE cause of her winning any votes. If it factored in to any woman’s voting it was as an “add-on” And I further doubt that any woman did not vote for her because her child has Down-syndrome
The issue was and is ABORTION; the fundamental Christian right.and factions within the Jewish religion who also do not believe in abortion. And that’s abortion for any reason! As I said, Rubin’s focus on Down syndrome and Trig was insulting!
Cliff I agree! How does Rubin see the unholy alliance between the Jews for Jesus, Christion right, Zionism and the state of Israel
.
Ah, maybe you should google something like “is it good for the jews.” It’s really not hard to decipher.
When MCCain picked Palin to be his running mate a guy I hadn’t talked to all year called me up to rant about Sarah Pain. His main complaint? That she didn’t abort a Downs Syndrome fetus. It bothered him that she felt so strongly about her religious convictions that she would actually act on them and deliberately choose not to abort a handicapped child. He couldn’t understand how she could take the attitude that God gave me this cross to bear and therefore I’m going to bear it willingly.
There are lots of things not to like about Sarah Palin but her willingness to gladly raise a Downs Syndrome child is not one of them.
Ooh, Phil, some spicey and right-on-the-line subject matter and views.
Anyone with an IQ over 89 loathes Palin and many studies have shown the jews do not have higher IQs than other groups.
What jews do is value education (as do Palestinians, Japanese, Armenians and several other cultures) and provide community support and family directives so that their children achieve academically.
I found this remark of yours interesting, Phil: “we should acknowledge our incredible luck”
I don’t see jews as lucky in their success, I see hard work and lot of helping each other out … jews certainly aren’t the only ones who help their own get ahead but the fact that such a tiny population of people hold such a huge percentage of powerful positions in politics, business, media, etc. bears scrutiny. If it were Camaroonians or Fijians or immigrants from Sweden who held so many positions of power in relation to their population number it would be a front-and-center topic. The use of both the anti-semitism charge and the we’re the world’s official victims tactic have held this scrutiny in check for many decades.
A couple of personal experiences I had in high school growing up in the L.A. area and being friends with many jews (among many other types of people) was once when 3 of my jewish friends and I were out to lunch the driver hit a curb and flattened a tire. I couldn’t believe it as they all sat there waiting for Triple A to come (in an era before cell phones) and take care of it when we could just change the tire ourselves. I offered and then withdrew the offer when I sensed their collective sure Goy you go ahead and these were my friends? It was a mindset they were taught in liberal L.A. by their parents … then another time the same friends and I went to visit the factory of one of their parents that made orthopedic footwear. We walked through the factory floor and met several very nice and friendly latinos who did the work and I was aghast at how to their faces my jewish friends were nice to these workers and once out of earshot the racist and contemptuous comments flowed about how they were lesser beings doing shit work to make money for jews. I chalked it up to what their parents taught them and the arrogance of being 16 or 17 years old and having everything given to you. Of course all of these people had hard right-wing attitudes toward the I-P conflict but at that age it wasn’t a topic of much discussion the way boobs, football and getting high were.
Of course this isn’t reflective of all jews, but in my experience this is very reflective of most jews in L.A.
If jews are rich elitists, fine, but the racism and supremacist attitudes many express must be addressed in relation to their power
Thank you, radii. I have had many analogous experiences. And I am an Irish-German American. And I am married to a Jew, and I’ve lived in Jewish neighborhoods in the Chicago area for many years. My personal stake here is that my wife is a Jew, and my son is a Jew, by classical Jewish criteria. I love my wife, and I love my son. And, as an American, I like to think the USA is not enabling crass ethnic or racist discrimination
by my tax dollars. But it is.
I’ve had the same experience about people waiting for AAA, but the people in question were rich WASPs. The common denominator is the money, not the ethno-religious group.
The country is run by the top 1%, economically & politically. The next 20%, roughly the people who have gone to “good colleges,” largely want to be like that 1%, and think there’s a chance they can. Even though the 1% is not based on “merit,” the 20% believe in the meritocracy, at some basic level. A disproportionate number of Jews are part of that 20% (as well as the 1%). Sarah Palin is not. Therefore, they simply have to despise her, no matter what her views might be on abortion, Israel, or anything else. But it’s not about Jews being Jewish, or Palin not being Jewish. They don’t want to be part of a game in which the “uneducated” can get rewarded, and then tell the “educated” what to do. If this pretense is not kept up, then we might have to start talking about substantive politics, most of which assumes it’s our right to kill people that we don’t like in other countries. The “educated” have their credentials and their professions, and they don’t want to have to prove that they’ve actually thought through the issues. Which is all to say, yes, it’s about elitism (liberal Democrat style), but it’s not about Jews per se. Obviously it’s not about Israel, such Palin supports it.
I don’t think Palin’s own personal sentiments are pro-Israel, but the population she panders to includes the Christofacist wing, which is.
This is an interesting article to me, because when I see the characteristics supposed to belong to “the Jews,” I see how Israelis differ profoundly.
“The Jews” are liberal and secular, but Israelis are increasingly right-wing in both politics and religion.
“The Jews” respect intellectualism and education, but Israelis have an dysfunctional educational system that is only getting worse because respect for learning is limited to yeshivas.
“The Jews” avoid military service, but Israelis take pride in their military service and look down on those who avoid it.
“The Jews” have contempt for Palin but worship the Israelis who most resemble her.
No, they worship “educated” and clever Israelis who are secular and militaristic, just like them. The Israelis that educated American Jews come into contact with through their institutions (Federations, etc.), are seen as reflections of the superiority of Jewish culture and civilization, in the context of Judeo-Christian and West European-American culture and civilization. They absolutely do not “worship Israelis who most resemble (Palin).”
They don’t know that they do, but this is what they are supporting. In their idolatry of Israel, they worship a hollow idol, not the real thing, because the idol is all they are shown.
“‘The Jews’ have contempt for Palin but worship the Israelis who most resemble her.”
Of course not totally true as to every attribute, but true enough as to the most important ones. One thinks of Goldy Meier for instance.
A very shrewd observation postherd. Very very shrewd.
I see this too. Palin is like a standard Israeli,but she’s not. Figure this out, here in the USA.
Jewish-Americans see Ashkenazi Israelis, minus the radical settlers, as being like them, except for “living in a rough neighborhood.” One of the founders of Ms. Magazine, Letty Cottin Progrebin, wrote a book about 20 years ago titled “Deborah, Golda, and Me.” The biblical Deborah, Golda the first woman P.M., Me the Feminist. I’m sure Pogrebin abhors Palin. Again, she has to.
“Right-wing populism” is still a talking point and a useful fear-factor for the anti-Semitism industry, but it’s no longer relevant to most Jews. The ADL has taken over the function of the John Birch Society. Alan Dershowitz has taken over the function of Joseph McCarthy.
Golda was absolutely a feminist darling, decades ago. Golda and Indira Ghandi, the female prime ministers, were put onto shining pedestals so high you couldn’t see the ugly.
And, judging by old photos, that was quite a feat.
I think American Jews disdain and fear Palin. The disdain (highlighted by the Commentary article) is social and intellectual. The fear is traditional. Jews fear populists. The history of populism in America is filled with antisemitism from Father Coughlin to George Wallace to Jesse Jackson. When they hear Sarah Palin say, (I paraphrase) “Soon American Jews will be moving to Israel,” the Jews go, “Aha! I told you so. Her pro Israel stance is just a cover for wanting the Jews out.”
So, where does that leave American populists, WJ? Are they automatically anti-semites? And, if so, does this mean that “real Americans” are not worthy? And, if so, does this mean, in turn, that no Jew or Gentile born in the USA can not properly
criticize what their own government is doing in terms of taxes and USA foreign policy? Nice. What’s upside down here?
And they’re probably right about that.
This is the other side of the coin: Palin’s contempt for everything the typical liberal Jew represents.
Strange, but they love/cover for Ariel Sharon who also had the same contempt for everything a typical liberal Jew represents as well: weak, whiney, tikkunish, always agonizing about what the goyim think. This has always been the problem of the Jew in galut and a big reason why Herzl et al. wanted their own country, so Jews could grow up to be normal and nonneurotic, not luftmenschen. Palin respects the normal Jew, the Israeli Jew, the Herzlian Jew. And you are right, she just doesn’t have much respect for the (predominately) liberal Jew.
And that contempt she shares with many young sabras. Sit down for a few beers with some young Israeli guys and ask them their opinion about the Birthright Israel boy children that come to visit Israel to dangle their toes in the water and go back to be Harvard and Wall Street Masters of the (Investment Banking) Universe (or New Jersey Dentists) where it is safe.
It remains to ask how much the typical liberal Jews are aware of the Israeli contempt for their kind, and how they reconcile this with their compulsion to support the thuggery.
It totally amazes me when liberal Reform Jews refuse to confront the contradiction in which the Israel that they support would drag away their female rabbi under arrest for praying at the Kotel. They refuse to confront the fact that the Israeli religious establishment doesn’t really consider them Jews at all.
The Israelis are playing the liberal Reform Jews for a bunch of suckers, and the US Jews just come back for more.
So when Aereial Sharon was de,amdomg that all American Jews should be moving to Israel, was he in on Palin’s an anti Semitic plot WJ.
It reminds me of Tom Fridman’s commentary about the Lebanon war and how the targetting of civilians and civilian infrastructure was a good tactic, because it has stopped further attacks from Hezbollah. No one on in the Zionist camp said a word, but if a goy were to accuse Israel of targetting of civilians and civilian infrastructure, they would be roundly accused on anti Semitism and being anti Israel.
You see, your comments are one of the many contradictions that come from the Zionist camp. When a Jew says something, it’s OK. When a goy says it or agrees, it’s anti semtisim or a blood libel.
Potsherd This is the other side of the coin: Palin’s contempt for everything the typical liberal Jew represents.
Palin is from Alaska; she’s just given up her governorship after half a term; and she’s a nothing, with no experience of anything. That very stupid action by McCain to choose her as VP is the only thing that has made her a super-star on the rightwing circuit. Her opinions on Israel are very much secondhand, learned from her PR advisors.
But her published opinions are dangerous. If she spews forth more crap on Fox TV (Haven’t seen her yet) then she’s a lot more than a hasbara troll.
David Green Jewish-Americans see Ashkenazi Israelis, minus the radical settlers, as being like them, except for “living in a rough neighborhood.”
You cannot separate the Ashkenazi Israelis living comfortable Mediterranean lives in Tel Aviv or Netanya, from the radical settlers, who are just a bit more rightwing and radical.
Both have a very, very negative attitude to the Palestinian natives.
No Ashkenazi Israelis live in in a rough neighborhood. Some Mizrahim do, in Sderot. But they were put there, precisely to endure counter-attacks from Gaza, a mile away.
They were put there to occupy the land so the Palestinians couldn’t take it back.